Rail transport is commonly used to convey passengers, goods, other materials, etc., from one location to another. To do so, two or more locomotives form a consist to push or pull freight and/or passenger cars along the rails. Locomotives also generally include network components that communicate with each other and facilitate user interaction via one or more wired and/or wireless networks to monitor and/or control the locomotive.
When a plurality of locomotives are connected to each other to form a consist, it may be desirable for the network components within one locomotive to communicate with network components in one or more other locomotives. In certain circumstances, however, environmental factors and/or characteristics of the communication lines connecting the network components may alter the channel quality of the communication lines, interfering with the proper transmission of these communications. Thus, a system is needed to compensate for the changing channel qualities when transmitting the data.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2011/0093144 (the '144 patent application) to Goodermuth et al. is directed to a system for communicating data in a locomotive consist. In particular, the '144 patent application discloses transmitting data within a locomotive consist between two or more locomotives. The system described by the '144 patent application, however, does not account for environmental factors that may alter the channel quality.
The disclosed methods and systems are directed to solving one or more of the problems set forth above and/or other problems of the prior art.